She was not afraid of fancied terrors, and real perils and anxieties
were at this moment lost in the bounding of her young heart at the
thought of seeing, touching, speaking to her brother, her dear
Edmund. She had been eleven years old when they last had parted, the
morning of the battle of Naseby, and he was five years older; but
they had always been very happy and fond companions and playfellows
as long as she could remember, and she alone had been on anything
like an equality with him, or missed him with a feeling of personal
loss, that had been increased by the death of her elder sister, Mary.
Quickly, and concealing her light as much as possible, she walked
down the damp ash-strewn paths of the kitchen-garden, and came out
into the overgrown and neglected shrubbery, or pleasance, where the
long wet-laden shoots came beating in her face, and now and then
seeming to hold her back, and strange rustlings were heard that would
have frightened a maiden of a less stout and earnest heart. Her
anxiety was lest she should be confused by the unwonted aspect of
things in the dark, and miss the path; and very, very long did it
seem, while her light would only show her leaves glistening with wet.
At last she gained a clearer space, the border of a field: something
dark rose before her, she knew the outline of the shed, and entered
the lower part.
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